Watch the video or read my tips that will help you with reputation management.

Usually, when people have something online which hurts their reputation, they become less active on social media and they make themselves isolated. Damage to one’s reputation causes a real fear to be active and often we try to escape when the current activity from others is negative.

Many of us want to run away and hide, but this is the worst thing we can do. The old adage that you can’t run away from your problems is true. In fact, when it comes to online, if you don’t combat the problem it can and will get worse. So the first tip is to be active and social. Put yourself out there. Create profiles and post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc. The goal is that when people search for you or read about you that it you that controls the message they see. The more information and messages that you put out there the less people will see of the negative stuff. Basically, you can create social noise so they can only hear what you want them to hear.

The second reputation management tip is to build on your web site. Your web site is your greatest support for your reputation management efforts. Each page of your site should reinforce your brand. This can be done simply by adding your name or company name, or branded product names within the title meta tags, page title and in the site’s footer. By doing this you can pretty much guarantee that when someone searches for you that the top 2-3 results will be pages from your site. The great thing about people finding your site first, you can can control the message they see. It recommended taking this a bit further and creating pages that target “reviews” and “complaints”, which if done correctly will also rank your content first and again allow you to control the message and put a positive spin on something that could otherwise be a negative.

The final reputation management tip is to put tips one and two together. The goal is use social media to reinforce the branding you created on your web site. So when you post on social media mention your brand names and company name and then link that post to your web site. The more active you create on social media that includes your web site the stronger your site will be on your branded terms. Don’t forget the opposite can be a benefit too, where your site can reinforce the strength of your social media accounts. Make sure to include the social sharing icons and account icons on your site’s pages. By strengthening both your web site and social sites you make the your brands wall of information the that much stronger.

Please if you have any questions, please leave comments below or contact me and I’ll be glad to help.